| ▲ | Synaesthesia 13 hours ago |
| I find some of the claims made about North Korea rather fanciful and unbelievable. |
|
| ▲ | jihadjihad 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I am sure the parents of Otto Warmbier [0] could disinfect your disbelief in the harsh light of their reality. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier |
| |
| ▲ | erxam 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Ok, so let me get this straight. Some foreigner came into their country and tried to 'illuminate' the 'unwashed' masses via tearing down propaganda and was promptly thrown into some hellhole of a jail. Seems to me like a normal thing to have happened. By the standards of the Global North, that is. Doesn't seem meaningfully different from today's USA. | | |
| ▲ | Incipient 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The way I read it is he was taking a poster home as a souvenir. An incredibly stupid thing to do, but I feel like being tortured to death for the amusement of people (presumably?) is somewhat excessive. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | crazybonkersai 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The most plausible explanation that those people who escaped NK were sentenced for something else and use excuse of watching foreign films to look good to Western researchers.
I believe that media landscape is restricted in NK, but getting a death sentence for a watching movie? No way it is possible. |
| |
| ▲ | incone123 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why do you think that is the 'most plausible explanation'? NK meets the simple test for evil dictatorships: do they need to use fences to stop citizens from leaving? Yes, NK does exactly that. | | | |
| ▲ | lIl-IIIl an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Look at the Soviet Union at the height of Stalinist oppression in the 1930s. Having the wrong book (not even necessarily a Western book but even a Soviet book that is no longer in good graces) could be a trip to the Gulag which for many was a death sentence. A lot of it was driven by quotas that the police had to meet. |
|
|
| ▲ | belter 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Me too. I don't think they need a reason to execute a person... |
| |
| ▲ | duxup 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | It certainly serves a purpose to have a reason, to make people fearful. | | |
| ▲ | saulpw 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | People are more fearful when there is no reason, when it is arbitrary or capricious. | | |
|
|
|
| ▲ | bilekas 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You find them to be, do you have any insight that would help us understand your point ? |
| |
| ▲ | sjiabq 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | How many times have Western intelligence services claimed that the Kims had killed one of their relatives or some high rank politician only for the person to reappear a few months later? | | |
| ▲ | bilekas 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | I really don't know, can you share some times they claimed definitively that it happened ? It's usually claimed to "be believed to have murdered X" - His brother for example. But Kim himself has admitted to murder so it's not really some 'exaggeration' [0]. So unless you have something that would confirm otherwise, which would make interesting reading I will have to take my grain of salt from what we do already know. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54291550 | | |
| ▲ | derelicta 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I know it's controversial to say here, but Korean people are human too. They are not stupid insects groomed to follow some great leader as if it were the queen of the hive. Most of what you assume to know about Koreans and likely Chinese or Vietnamese people is false. It's pure propaganda. Also lol for linking the BBC. To me it's like linking Radio Free Asia or the New York Times and pretend those are freedom fighters. | | |
| ▲ | bilekas 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Also lol for linking the BBC. To me it's like linking Radio Free Asia or the New York Times and pretend those are freedom fighters. It's not really when the reporting is reporting what was done. But here's some more articles saying the same thing ? > Most of what you assume to know about Koreans and likely Chinese or Vietnamese people is false. You are assuming I am making assumptions. But I can see this discussion isn't going anywhere fast. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/asia-pacific/north-kor... https://abcnews.go.com/International/north-korea-issues-rare... https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20200... https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916807251/kim-jong-un-apologi... | | |
| ▲ | derelicta 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh yes ofc, if all imperial newspapers are saying it has happened, then it must have happened. A bit like when all imperial newspapers said there were WMD in Irak and that's why America had to destroy this country. | | |
| ▲ | bilekas an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I really don't like entertaining discussions that are in bad faith, but the Iraq WMDs comment has bothered me. The UN themselves said it was unlikely Iraq had them. So while you clearly have your biases, at least double check them before trying to make a point. More people might take you seriously and have a meaningful discussion. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq | |
| ▲ | erxam 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's funny seeing how the same people who scream and whine about the media being 'biased' whenever they report on some awful shit that Trump did (even when it actually indirectly paints him positively) will unquestionably believe absolutely everything the media reports about North Korea. Oh, sure, they're not directly state-owned news (except NPR and the BBC etc. etc.). They're just owned by the owners of the state. |
|
| |
| ▲ | zamadatix 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't see a controversy on HN where the problem with North Korea is supposed to be the people must not be human. You, me, North Koreans, South Koreans, and anybody else are obviously all people. These are regions of people, not species listings. As such, we obviously all fall for silly beliefs - that's one thing humans do. Sometimes that bites us in the ass real bad, sometimes it's less severe, but humans aren't defined as being perfect. Believing being human makes you immune to the same kinds of belief problems as other humans have gotten themselves into results in bite-you-in-the-ass results more often, among other problems. | |
| ▲ | simion314 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This sounds very soviet, I see them all the time showing some traveling guide to NK and claiming is a paradise like USSR was, but then you ask why do this regimes have walls and kill the people that try to escape the paradise? why do people want to escape the paradise risking their lives ? And to have the balls to claim you can't trust people that lived in NK and escaped and you should better trust who? those NK propaganda images the soviets are spreading around ? I call soviets the home sovieticus, the imperialists bastards that excuse that criminal regime and want it back, like the Zeds and their friends. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | derelicta 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There is just a lot of bs being spread about NK. Westerners, for example, genuindely believed all koreans had to get a haircut that is approved by the government. I'm not even saying this country is not paranoid, but its nearly not as bad as everyone is imaging, and frankly, considering what Americans have inflicted unto the korean people, its fairly understandable. | | |
| ▲ | 31337Logic 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh I'll take the firsthand reports of escapees over your thoughts on the matter, any day. | | |
| ▲ | jackb4040 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | North Korean defectors are well known for being unreliable sources. They rarely have skills nor social connections and thus are massively incentivized to join the existing markets for anti-NK propaganda in both the West and India. The kind of obvious propaganda like "it's a crime to have the same haircut as Kim Jong-Un" (or to not have it, depending on the source). No one is saying life there is great, but there is a track record of fantastically untrue stories. | | |
| ▲ | incone123 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | If they rarely have skills or social connections, how were they able to achieve the feat of escaping from the Hermit Kingdom in the first place? It seems to me that this high bar selects for people who can thrive in adverse circumstances. | | |
|
|
|
|
